- PLATO, The Republic, Book II Natalie spent the night in the back of the Jeep, parked in a public garage north of the city, using a duffel bag for a pillow and a tarp for a blanket. For six hours her tension and confusion battled with her physical and emotional exhaustion for possession of her ability to sleep. In the end, the struggle was more or less of a draw, and she estimated two hours of decent rest, maybe even three. At five thirty, stiff and bleary, she climbed out of the Jeep and paced around level two of the garage. As far as she could tell, she was fifteen or twenty miles north of Rio, just a dozen or so miles from Route 44, a cutoff that would continue leading north and west, away from the coast. That two-lane would eventually become a winding, probably unpaved secondary road that snaked into the rain forest mountains for at least twenty miles before connecting, in some way, with a road to the village of Dom Angelo. It was going to be a hell of a trip, but that might be said for every inch her life had traveled since she stepped on board her initial flight to Rio.
